Meet the Challenge of Change in 7 Steps (When Bears Listen to Rabbits)

By James Dillon

How do you get a corporation and its managers to change? How can you carry out ambitious initiatives? How do you develop intelligent ways to see issues in a completely fresh way?
This book presents 7 steps of a change process, with each step illustrated by successful, innovative companies and managers.
With the help of an exclusive test, readers can validate their ability to be actors who manage their own changes, rather than be overwhelmed by change itself!
In the last section, a “business-tale” in the form of an allegory illustrates creative thinking processes in action. It stimulates the ability to be innovative by working with “whole-brain” approaches, associating “left-brain” “right-brain” hemispheres of intelligence. Berry the Bear teams up with Agile the Rabbit to guide us playfully through different steps to our own success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Dillon
• Release date: Sep 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301969067

James Dillon

For over 30 years now, I accompany individuals and teams in issues involved in change processes in a corporate environment in France. My international clients call on me to create cohesion, reveal talents and reinforce their competitivity in a multicultural context. In concrete, pragmatic ways, I contribute to strategic performance by getting companies to build and transmit a shared vision and to integrate diversity as a way to meet their goals. Who I am I have carried out « training-action » missions in both English and in French for over 30 years involving communication, management, leadership, human resources and negotiation issues, especially for Philips and Sodern (EADS). Since 1999, I have been called on to coach managers, both for individuals and teams. I base my coaching approach on multi-level listening, on a systemic vision as well as situational management, cognitive and behavioral tools. My qualities as a facilitator have been proven in the following fields: finance, telecommunications, information systems, electronics, construction, aeronautics and medical. Professional coach I received a first level of coaching training provided by Brigitte Warnez and based on the principles set down by Vincent Lenhardt, the founder of the coaching profession in France. I broadened my knowledge of coaching with a certification program conducted by Mediat-Coaching in Paris; I obtained a Myers Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI) certification. I am also accredited to use Team Management Systems (TMS) in order to work on team dynamics, as well as Opportunity Orientation Profile (OOP). I underwent intensive training on theatrical and vocal techniques with E. Martin-Brown (London, 1976-77). Today, I accompany managers who need to speak and communicate masterfully in public. Keynote speaker As a Professional Speaker (www.speakersacademy.com), I give conferences on dynamic change processes, leadership and teamwork as well as on integration, diversity and sustainable development challenges in corporate settings. In a more technical context, I have designed and facilitated programs on safety issues with groups of engineers, studying cases of industrial and transportation accidents combining technical, organizational and human errors. Writer Starting in 2002, I wrote articles in both French and English for www.mediat-coaching.com. I co-authored a book published in French, “Réussir le défi du changement en 7 étapes” (Meet the challenge of change in 7 steps) with Brigitte Warnez, ex-director of development at L’Oreal, illustrating it with a management allegory (“When Bears listen to Rabbits”) about a team facing change. Networks and affiliations My educational background includes a degree in Theater and Literature from Tufts University in Boston. As member of the French Association for Directors of Human Resources (ANDRH), I participate actively in HR taskforces. As an accredited member of the European Mentoring & Coaching Council (EMCC), I contribute to promoting professional ethics and practices. I provide commentary on the French web radio for entrepreneurs, www.widoobiz.com

Book preview

About the Authors

Based in France, Brigitte Warnez and James Dillon are both certified coaches, management trainers specialized in Human Resources and change management. Their combined European and American cultural backgrounds provides them with a business vision that opens up pathways for innovative directions.

Brigitte Warnez has been Director for New Project Development at L’Oreal, Johnson Wax and Schweppes. James Dillon works with international firms in France as well as in French engineering and management schools.

Acknowledgements

We would especially like to thank Emilie Devienne, coach and author, who supported us right from the beginning in the initiative of writing a business-tale. Vincent Lendhardt, Laurence d’Andlau, Yolande Ardillier, Christine Mirto Desclaux and Ségolène Lavaud also contributed with superb feedback for the French publication, helping us to clarify our ideas and to improve our text. Pierre Blanc Sahnoun encouraged us at a critical turning point in our first draft. Thibault Lanxade provided us with invaluable insights as President of his company, Aqobe, and as an author in his own right.

We also would like to show our great appreciation to our illustrator, Gabs, for his splendid proposals for our book’s cover, and to our French publisher, Guy Champagne, who had confidence in us and who guided us through the different steps in structuring this book. Thanks also to Nicolas De Beer who has always encouraged James Dillon right from the outset to write his "Flowing Times" articles for over ten years in both English and in French for the web-site www.mediat-coaching.com. We also would like to extend our recognition for the community of mediators, entrepreneurs, keynote speakers, coaches, both in France and worldwide, who provide us with constant inspiration. Thank you again, Gregory and Anne Bangs for sharing a couple telling insights from a business perspective.

This English version underwent careful scrutiny by James’ long-standing friend, Joseph E. Bush. Talk about friendship between the lines! Also, Robert J. Dillon responded to the urgency of nailing a few wandering punctuation marks.

THE FIRST PART

THE 7 STEPS

A CHANGE PROCESS

Introduction

To take big steps in a world that is undergoing tremendous and stressful changes, you need to anticipate behaviors and attitudes. Today, with new economic rules, globalization, sustainable development and rare resources, every manager must know how to master the management of transitions in order to face the unknown and resistance in the face of the unknown. Change is indeed inevitable. If a corporation or society is not prepared, change forced on it may prove fatal.

If nothing is done when change is required, a disappearing act is a certainty. As the classic American adage puts it, Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

Our intention is to help readers steer their way through uncertain environments, to enable them to adapt and to transform a crisis into an opportunity. When economic and material resources grow scarce, it is critical for people to think in another way, to call on their imaginative resources, and to become the creators of their own solutions. When you face a complex issue, thinking of an analogy changes your way of looking at what is at stake, allows you to overcome your stress, and to collective intelligence to emerge. Theoretical concepts and our own experience are the basis of our model.

We propose a change process in seven steps, illustrated in a new and original way that might spark our intelligence. We hope, especially, that it might stimulate our brain’s pre-frontal lobes where our adaptive faculty is located, according to the research on stress and performance performed by Dr. Jacques Fradin, Director and Founder of the Laboratoire de Neurosciences et Psychologie (Neuroscience and Psychology Laboratory) in France.

OUR PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE

Change is seldom received with enthusiasm, especially when it is imposed. When several French ministries called on her, Brigitte Warnez has designed and run several seminars on the theme of Make change your ally as a way to accompany high-level civil servants dealing with reforms and new organizations. James Dillon has mobilized teams to search for a common vision in cross-cultural, cross-functional contexts.

Each of us has been coaching teams and accompanying individuals facing key changes in their companies: mergers, relocations, implementing new technologies, changing jobs, lay-offs. These experiences have helped us to emphasize how important it is to:

• Anticipate and prepare for a change.

• Ensure the quality of communication and share a vision.

• Have enduring courage during an ordeal.

• Use resources that are the fruit of collective intelligence wisely.

• Recognize success and celebrate it.

These observations led us to determine that there are seven steps to succeed in starting in a different direction:

1. Detecting the signals of inevitable change

2. Building an alliance

3. Having vision

4. Convincing others

5. Going through the ordeal

6. Mobilizing the resources of the team

7. Celebrating success

Our method is based on listening and analyzing innumerable experiences from our clients, whether individual or collective. We do not pretend to have the absolute solution, just a series of coherent and sensible suggestions. In fact, leaders and their teams face many unknown factors. Solutions often come out of the blue, so it is important to know how to initiate and cultivate surprising ideas. Frederick Nietzsche wrote, You need some chaos inside of yourself if you want to give birth to a dancing star.

Certain actions are particularly effective, generating cohesion in a team and catalyzing change.

CHAOS PREPARES RENEWAL

Our theoretical basis

When we accompany our clients, we rely on a rich foundation stemming from the Systemic Approach, change dynamics, creative techniques as well as Narrative Practices.

With the Systemic Approach, we have integrated the work done by Paul Watzlawick, one of the eminent members of Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, based on the research carried out by Gregory Bateson and Don D. Jackson. Therapist and philosopher, Paul Watzlawick practiced a strategic and interactional approach for problem-solving, as opposed to a more retrospective, analytical and linear approach. Instead of searching for the reason why a behavior occurs, he recommended apprehending a person’s context in a broader way. He asks, In which human environment and system does this behavior make sense and can it be the only possible behavior? Systemic principles facilitate an approach for change based on action, on accepting others and on movement. Sometimes the main protocols or strategies used to modify opinions and behaviors go against our way of doing things, even to the point of being a paradox. Paul Watzlawick distinguishes between two levels of a change:

• For a change at level 1, we need to change something inside of the system in order to adapt it.

• For a change at level 2, the whole system needs to be called into question. This entails a change of our paradigm.

Both types of change are difficult to carry out. The first one intrudes on our thinking routine, which may have become somewhat rigid, dogmatic, conformist, too readily invoked as our general policy, one that may be ill-suited to stressful times. The second sort of change requires taking a great leap into the unknown. The aim of our business-tale later in this book is to enhance certain behaviors such as curiosity, fluidity, audacity, leadership and solidarity. The ability to manage change is going to be strongly influenced by how we look at a situation, by the posture we choose to adopt. Managers who see themselves as being in the box or out of the box have quite contrasting views of reality. This is made clear in the following quote: … it obviously makes a difference whether we consider ourselves as pawns in a game whose rules we call reality or as players of the game who know that the rules are ‘real’ only to the extent that we have created or accepted them, and that we can change them.[1]

CHANGE DYNAMICS AND THE PHENOMENON OF MOURNING

Williams Bridges, a world-renowned sociologist who studied change management, proposed the three distinct phases below. He insisted especially on how important it was not to rush the transition from one phase to the next one.

• A sense of loss and mourning over what we can never re-gain.

• The neutral zone, chaos, no-man’s land.

• Being able to take a new direction.

In the first phase, the sense of loss and ensuing mourning may be over an extended period of time. The emotions stemming from the turning point need to be recognized. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist who wrote on this mourning process, determined that there five stages are frequently expressed when people come to terms with death. These can also be seen to typify the ways in which we face loss in general — even change in a corporation. These emotional stages constitute a process we need to go through, one way or another. The order is not always the same and there may be reversals. Here is the list of these different stages:

• Denial

• Anger

• Negotiating

• Sadness, regret

• Acceptance

These emotionally laden responses, however, are often not taken into account in the business world. If they are ignored, though, they may block or sabotage attempts to make a new start. Thomas Fiutak, a professor at the University of Minnesota, speaks about ventilating emotions, an indispensable process for liberating creative energy that will be required to succeed with change. For Fiutak, this is the time to make an evaluation during which all the elements of the past are examined, ranked according to how much they correspond to profound values that need to be found in the new situation.

Bridges also refers to this indispensible step of first coming to terms with what’s being lost. Subsequently, in his second phase in his change process, he outlines the importance of accepting to go through the chaos of change, treating it as a neutral zone within which people freely explore the potential for becoming fully engaged actors in the change process. Unfortunately, we do our best to skip what we perceive as disorder — turbulence in our flight path, so to speak — perhaps because it corresponds to a crisis for us. This transition occurs after we lose what we know and before a changed condition can be shaped to take its place. Williams Bridges emphasized the importance of this vacuum because it allows us to let go of the way things were, to re-evaluate our priorities and to move on to a new chapter in our lives. The future is still being shaped, but disorderly movement obscures it, with every outcome seemingly possible, like with a random agitation of molecules. This is the unknown we fear the most, when no risk is under control.

In these circumstances, no two people are alike and a